I was wondering how long before the Kickstarter bubble bursts and now we have the less than edifying spectacle of a studio with AAA pretensions scrabbling around for funding for a tech demo.
Goblinworks are using Kickstarter to “fund” their Pathfinder Online technology demo. Yep that’s right, it’s not the actual game they want funding for, just the demo.
Goblinworks was formed in 2011 and has an exclusive license to develop an MMO based on the Pathfinder RPG. One of the founders of Goblinworks however is also a founder of Paizo (owners of Pathfinder) so it’s fair to say the two companies are closely linked. Given that’s the case, it’s even more baffling that they are asking for funding on Kickstarter as last I heard Pathfinder was outselling D&D so presumably they aren’t short of a bob or two!
Who exactly out there is willing to fund a project that the developers aren’t willing to fund themselves?
If you’re that hard up at least grab some cheap middleware and stock art and make something yourself, just to show that you’re serious. The company blog is full of the usual lofty designer stuff (and nothing anyone who’s played MUDs or MMOs over the last 20 years hasn’t heard or seen before by the way) but it sounds like they have a team and offices and all that good stuff, so what, they just didn’t budget enough to make the actual demo?
It looks like the Kickstarter page has been pulled for now, but according to Goblinworks CEO Ryan “Steve Jobs” Dancey it was published prematurely and more information is to follow.
Let’s hope cooler heads prevail and they abandon the Kickstarter idea because the whole thing doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence in the project.
bcdev.design.blog 
Well the project went live and within a day reached its target.
At the time of writing the total amount pledged is $50,833 from 740 people. That’s an ARPPU of nearly $69 which bodes well for their cash shop 😉
I’m sure that was the whole point of the exercise; it’s not that they needed the money, rather they just wanted to demonstrate interest to potential investors.
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I bet studios will use Kickstarter more and more as a marketing platform. The money raised is in a sense illusory given the hard costs of many of the rewards, but the dollar figure everyone sees will be a potent symbol of a project’s popularity.
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Yeah it makes sense from that point of view, but part of me is a bit sad that Kickstarter is being used so cynically by big companies who should have access to other funding sources. The counter argument I guess is that the vast majority of the backers on this one were probably existing Pathfinder fans so it’s doubtful they would have been drawing funding away from other projects. And who knows, maybe some of those people will stick around Kickstarter and find some interesting indie projects to back.
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Looks like they’ve now gone bust so perhaps they really did need that sweet Kickstarter cash after all. I don’t know if the backers will get their rewards, or how much they’ll be worth given that the game is effectively on life support with only 3 staff to keep it going, but I guess it’s another Kickstarter MMORPG cautionary tale.
At least the people who backed Embers of Caerus knew they were throwing in with a bunch of unfunded rookies but I’d have thought Pathfinder Online would have been a safer bet with the might of Paizo behind it.
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